Casana Heart Seat brings health monitoring to your bathroom
For years, smart toilet seats have been a fixture in Japanese homes. Their advanced features deliver unrivalled comfort and convenience. Casana is now bringing this concept over to the US with their health-monitoring smart toilet seat, which has just gained FDA 510(k) clearance.
Casana Heart Seat tracks heart rate, blood oxygen & more
The company has received authorization for their revolutionary Heart Seat to monitor heart rate and oxygen saturation in individuals aged 22 and up, weighing between 90 and 350 pounds. The battery-powered seat can operate for several years without requiring a recharge. Each time you do your business, it will wirelessly transmit health data to healthcare providers and warn them if any parameters go outside of a predefined range.
Heart Health Intelligence was created in 2018. It was formed as a collaboration with the University of Rochester Medical Centre. Casana’s founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Nicholas Conn. He came up with the idea for the Heart Seat while working on his Ph.D. at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
The company raised a $30 million Series B investment in early 2022, increasing its total funding to $46 million. Casana intends to seek further FDA certifications to enhance the Heart Seat’s monitoring capabilities. This includes blood pressure monitoring. The hope is that the product will hit retail by the end this year.
Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets
According to Casana CEO Austin McChord, the clearance of Heart Seat is a crucial step towards commercialization. He believes that by enabling more effective health management from home, this innovation will help patients and healthcare providers across the United States.
“This clearance is a critical step on our journey to commercialize the Heart Seat,” he said in a statement.
“This brings us one step closer to helping patients and healthcare providers across the US manage their health at home.”
Home urine testing platforms
Remote patient monitoring is a rapidly expanding area of digital health. To meet the growing demand for these services, numerous startups and major health tech companies are building monitoring systems. According to a 2022 study published in Health Affairs, billing for remote patient monitoring increased more than fourfold during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Another player in the remote monitoring arena is Withings. They unveiled U-Scan earlier this year. The gadget can be placed within a toilet bowl to monitor an individual’s health through urine analysis. The sensor is composed of a reading device and a replaceable cartridge. Both of these can be easily attached to your toilet, transforming it into a miniature health laboratory. Withings claims that the development of the U-Scan took four years and resulted in the submission of 13 patent application families.
Smart toilet seats are poised to play an important part in revolutionising health monitoring. These gadgets are projected to enhance patient outcomes, cut healthcare costs, and increase access to essential health information by integrating health management into our daily routines.
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